Different Circumstances
by The Dark Crimson Blood
Summary: In which Kei and Kai are best friends since they were three years old, but Kei gets taken away at nine and ends up spending a little more time captive than he ever ever wanted. Oneshot.


Three year old Nagai Kei sits at the park with his legs curled into his chest and his arms wrapped around his shins, his head tilted down as if to hide his face. It's warm. He might be sick, but right now that's the least of his problems.

The other kids in the park ignore him; he's an outsider, and will probably be one for the rest of his life. Even his father hated him, and all his mother cared about was if he behaved himself or not.

There's a mark across his face in the shape of a hand; someone slapped him. The same person who gave him the multitude of bruises lingering his body. A group of children around his age run past, playing some sort of game that Nagai finds interesting for a moment. If only a moment.

Another boy with somewhat spiky black hair and golden eyes sits by the jungle gym alone. Little Kei stands up, showing off bloody knees and elbows as he moves. Surprisingly enough, he sits down right next to the lonely boy at the jungle gym. He doesn't say anything. The other looks at him, surprised and confused.

Kei doesn't meet his gaze. "Doesn't make sense to be alone when we can be together."

The boy smiles, eyes lighting up with a warmth and brightness that makes the natural outsider want to move away. He doesn't. It's warm here so he stays. "I'm Kai!" The boy says, enthusiastically. He juts out his hand and ushers Kei to take it.

He does. "I'm Kei." He replies.

That was the beginning of their friendship.

A year passes. Kai and Kei are respectively five and four years old when they start kindergarten. Kei walks to Kai's house alone; it's not far, and his mother wants him to be more independent. Not that he wasn't already, though.

He has to stand on his tips of his feet if he wants to reach Kai's doorbell, but Kai's at the door already. They walk to school together hand in hand, talking about little things as they go. Kei can feel his sense of happiness being ripped apart after their first day of school.

That's right. He's an outsider. Kai is not.

Everyone loves Kai. All of the teachers adore him and the other kids migrate around him like ants to a grain of sugar; it's not the same for Kei, who finds himself being avoided and ignored. The teachers speak to him coldly and sometimes not at all.

Kei's not jealous about all the attention and love Kai gets, or maybe he is and just doesn't admit it. Right now the only thing he's upset about is the fact that they're taking his friend, his best friend, only friend away from him.

He keeps to himself and decides it's okay; some people are meant to be alone like him, not Kai. Kai's meant to have millions of billions of trillions of friends and that's okay, Kei decides. He was never really that important anyway.

At the end of the day, a lot of the children Kai to walk home with them. He shoots down every one of them and takes Kei's hand instead; for some reason, that made Kei feel happier than he could ever care to explain.

"You made a lot of new friends today." He says, in the same monotone his voice was always in.

"Yeah! But you're more important than all of them!" Kai announces, loudly.

The two stop by the park for the briefest of moments before Kei has to go home.

Two years pass.

Six year old Kei tries his best to remain calm as his mother takes his cellphone away from him, while having the only intent to tear him away from his only friend. "Why? I need a reason." She looks down at him; it seems that she's slightly annoyed with his inquiries.

"Because Kai is the son of a criminal. If you want to become an outstanding human being, then you need to choose your friends more wisely." Does that really sound like a good enough reason to stop being friends with Kai? Just because his father was a criminal? Kei highly doubts his mother, but goes along with it just to please her.

"Okay." He takes his phone back from her. Kai's number is gone, but Kei has it memorized in his head. He doesn't tell her that, nor does he tell her that right after this he's going to go visit Kai's house to play.

Kai's family is always happy to have him. His father especially, as he blamed himself for Kei not making friends because of his criminal history. If it hadn't been for Kei, Kai would be alone. Kei thinks he has it mistaken, things are definitely the other way around.

Nonetheless, Kei speaks to Kai honestly. "My mother deleted your phone number from my contact list. She said that I needed to pick my friends more carefully, since you're the son of a criminal."

"Are we..." Kai begins, honey brown eyes full of worry as Kei continues. If that was all there was, then Kei probably wouldn't have come all the way over here just to ditch him, surly there had to be more. This couldn't be the end. "Still friends?"

Kei raises an eyebrow, confused. "Why wouldn't we be?"

The slightly older boy breathes a sigh of relief. He looks as if he's ready to cry. "I thought you were gonna tell me that we couldn't be friends anymore!"

Though usually not one to initiate any sort of contact, Kei wraps his arms around his friend and hugs him loosely. Kai's the one who pulls him in tighter. "We'll always be friends, Kai." Unknown to Kei, Kai will remember his words for the rest of his life.

Kai is ten years old when a delivery truck nearly takes his life; two hands on his back push him out of the way. He turns around just fast enough to see his best friend being rammed into; his body crushed underneath the truck, slowly bleeding out into large puddles of blood.

He calls out for his fallen friend, but stops just as Kei stands up again. His body regenerating and the look of pain on his face slowly changing to one of fear and confusion. The truck driver who had grabbed his shoulders and yelled at him relentlessly, turns around in horror. "A-Ajin! It's an Ajin!"

People around them scream, others take pictures to post on the internet. Kei's still standing in the middle of it all, covered in blood and scared out of his mind. Kai runs up to him, taking his hand and running off towards the woods. It's easy to get away, but sooner or later the police would be after them.

"What was all of that? Kai, what happened? I, I died!" He's shaking. The pain from the incident still fresh in his mind; Kai puts his hands on top of his friend's shoulders, hoping to quell his panic. "It hurt, it hurt so much... There's so much blood...!"

Kai wants to do nothing but reassure his friend that everything is fine, that they'll get out of this and everything will go back to normal afterwards. It won't. They both know it. There's nothing to say or do; they're just kids! "What's going to happen now, Kai?"

Kai shakes his head. "I don't know, Kei." He brings his friend into a tight hug and refuses to let go.

The police find them within minutes. They're surrounded.

Kai cries as his shot and killed for the second time that day, and then taken away from him without giving him any chance to say goodbye.

oOo

Nagai Kei doesn't really know where he is, but he knows that he's been here for awhile. The feeling of cold, hard metal pressing into his back has become a normal sensation. The metal constraints prevent him from moving anything but his toes, fingers, and head. Sometimes the one around his neck digs into his skin and chokes him to death. They've loosened it since.

His body is covered in bandages; a single slit allows him to see out of them. He can't see much, but he sees enough. Sometimes he wonders if it would be better if he couldn't see anything at all. Instead he sees all of the sharp tools the doctors are using on him, he sees them cut into his defenseless body, and he sees what they bring out.

They're dissecting him, experimenting on him, testing him.

Kei has been able to judge how days go by after the first three days of torture. They follow a schedule; one so simple that even he could pick up on it. They take one hour shifts, switching out when necessary and trying to keep him alive during the whole time span of their shift. Then they reset him, and switch with others. Sometimes they'll take two half hour shifts, but all of it leads up to one hour.

So when Kei starts seeing different faces after he's been reset, he knows that an hour has passed and they've switched out. After six hours- six shifts go by, they take a break. They leave him alone for what seems to be a very brief period of time, but they come back fairly quickly. Kei counts the seconds, minutes. Thirty. It's probably a lunch break.

Kei wonders how they could stomach lunch after ripping him apart through and through.

After they come back it's another eight long hours, eight long shifts before they leave again. This time they're gone for much longer, and again Kei counts. At this point it's probably the only thing keeping him sane. Six hours in the morning, half an hour for lunch, eight hours after. Fourteen and a half hours total of torture before they leave, probably for the night.

He's blessed with an eight hour time-span where the clean up the blood, change his bandages, and and shackle him right back down to the table. That much takes an hour. The lights go out afterwards, and Kei is stuck a dark room that smells like blood and bleach for five more.

He tries to sleep, he honestly does.

Nightmares haunt his dreams every time he closes his eyes, and waking up in darkness doesn't help anything or anyone. Certainly not him. Sometimes he thinks that if he doesn't sleep at night then he'll sleep through the torture in the morning. He never does, but it doesn't stop him from hoping.

Kei thinks a lot at night. He thinks about how much his sister hates him, how being hit by his father probably wouldn't even hurt anymore, and about how his mother had a keen dislike for him. Most of the time he thinks about Kai. Kai. Kai.

Out of everything in Kei's short, pathetic life he misses Kai the most.

There's a strange black figure in the corner of the room that Kei ignores, it's probably his imagination. It's creepy, always standing there and watching him but never moving in the slightest. Kei ignores it. It's not there.

He's not here.

But he is.

It, is.

oOo

It's been about a year since Kei was killed, twice, and then taken away by people Kai had once looked up to. No, it's been over a year. Three hundred and seventy two days to be exact, not that he's counting. The news had announced it to the world that nine year old, now ten year old Kei was an Ajin. A monster. A demi-human.

People had celebrate his capture. Kai had not.

What was there to be afraid of anyway? What could Kei have possibly done to hurt anyone? He was a nine year old boy! A child, someone who only worried about school and becoming a better person! Yet the world had cheered and praised people, praised him for capturing the ajin.

People were disgusting.

About a month after Kei's capture, a video on youtube had went viral. It was a livestream of Kei, on an operating table and being dissected over and over again. The video went on for eight hours before cutting off; the government had tried to take it down, but once something went up on the internet it was there forever.

At first, people had cheered. Then the bandages came off and revealed a very bloody little boy who was much skinnier than Kai had remembered; his eyes looked dead and there were tears streaked down his face

People stopped cheering for it after that.

There was new video every week now; it lasted a whole twenty four hours and was broadcast all over the world for everyone to see. Perhaps it as because of this that a new group formed; a group of protesters, wanting to save the child from such inhuman torture.

No one deserved it, most certainly not a child who did nothing wrong in his life.

Kai isn't sure what to do, really. He's just eleven years old with no car, no license, and no friends to help him. He's still just a kid, but that didn't stop him from going online and looking up whatever he could about the facility holding his best friend.

Kei's family isn't even doing anything. The cold, heartless woman who called herself a mother had simply pushed it aside. Calling her son a disappointment and practically disowning him on television; it was clear that she never cared about him as a person, all she wanted from him was good grades and good behavior. It was sickening.

She was a cold woman.

In addition to that, their father was abusive. Kai knew this already, as he used to remember pestering Kei about all the bruises he would leave the house with and all the times he limped instead of walked. Kai wonders if it's because he's unhappy with his family, and the only one he could take it out on was Kei.

Either way, it wasn't right.

Finally, there was Kei's younger sister. She was a year younger than him, which wasn't much at all. She claimed to be upset with him for agreeing with their mother to remove Kai as a contact, but clearly she didn't know the full story. She would be useless when it came to helping get Kei back anyway, not that she wanted to.

There's nothing.

Nothing but leaked photos and leak videos that do nothing but make Kai feel sick to his stomach.

Kai joins the Ajin Protection Program. There are over a hundred members now, and it's popularity is only growing. Fast. Maybe one day they can do something about this. Maybe one day he can save Kei.

No, he will.

Leaving his friend to suffer was not and will never be an option.

oOo

The black ghost draws a line on the ceiling, there are eight hundred and twenty lines up there. They resemble the eight hundred and twenty days that Kei has spent in this facility; if he can't keep track then the ghost does, and for that Kei is grateful.

He never expected it to move out of the one corner, but he's glad that it did. Kei's long since realized that no, it's not part of his imagination. It's a ghost that only he can see, but no one else can. It probably has something to do with him being an Ajin. He thinks.

Anyway. The constant torture has become easier to deal with; surly he's died hundreds of thousands of times now, it would be weird if he hadn't gotten some sort of tolerance to the pain over the years. Sometimes if he's exhausted himself enough, he can even sleep through it. Though the doctors are never happy with him when he does, but he does anyway. It's an act of rebellion, and the only thing they can't stop him from doing.

In addition to that, there's this doctor on cleanup duty who h's been seeing a lot more of lately. He's always alone, coming in during the six hours where torture ends and it's supposedly night time. He unlocks Kei from his shackles first, cleans him up, and leaves him on the table while he goes to clean the rest of the room.

Kei feels as free as he'll ever be in this room. The door is locked and he doesn't know where the exit is, if there was one. The doctor does it out of the kindness of his heart, and Kei enjoys the feeling of air on his skin and the lack of constraints on his body.

For the hour that it takes him to clean up the room, Kei feels free. Well, as free as he'll ever be in this disgusting room. It doesn't take him long to realize that the doctor takes care of him first on purpose, and clearly because he sees how wrong this is when no one else notices.

"I'm so sorry." He gets down on his hands and knees to apologize, Kei just stares at him wordlessly. Within minutes he's wrapped up in bandages again and getting ready to be tied back down to the table. "What's your name, kid?"

Kei frowns, calculating red eyes scanning the doctor for the longest time before his face scrunches up. His name? What kind of question was that? Couldn't he just use one of the names all of the other doctors called him? Ajin? Monster? 002? "Your real name."

Again, he hesitates. What was his name again? The name Kai used to call him all the time with such adoration and care and warmth, he feels tears well up in his eyes and he does his best to push them away. "K-Kei."

"I would say that it is a pleasure to oficially meet you, but under these circumstances it's not. Please call me Ryou."

Eyes full of distrust narrow, that pit of unease that rested in his stomach never surfaces. "Why... Why are you being so nice to me? You're supposed to hurt me."

"You're just a kid, Kei. No one is supposed to hurt you, but you're an Ajin in their eyes. I, I just can't. I have a son older than you. He's in college. I can't imagine seeing him here in your place, and I know how wrong this is. You don't deserve this."

Thin brows raise. "Then why... am I here?"

"Because people are monsters." Kei's face softens. He looks into the eyes of this man, this stranger, this person and sees Kai. "You're human."

Kei's tears spill over and his body shakes as he tries to stop his sobs. All the doctor can do is put a hand on his head until his tears stop. Ryou is forced to shackle Kei back down to the dissection table, and wonders if the guilt tearing in his chest would be enough to kill him.

Probably not.

"I'll figure out a way to get you out of here, kid, just hold on."

The door closes and the lights go off. Kei finds himself holding onto his words closer than he holds onto his sanity.

oOo

One thousand, four hundred and sixty days. Four years.

It feels like just yesterday that Kei disappeared, just yesterday that he died. After school Kai watches as other kids his age rush to get to their respective clubs to practice whatever activities that they enjoy, but some people aren't that lucky. Kei would never be that lucky.

They should enjoy what they have, Kai thinks. Ironically calling the kettle black as he leaves school, faster than everyone else and a long way out the gates before the bell even rings. He can't stay around; he's got things to do, places to do, people to... No one to see.

At first he thought that it might be a good idea to head over to the libary to use the computer, it's not as if he has any of his own at home or anything. Though he changes his mind; he's tired, there are deep bags underneath his eyes and it's hard to keep them open.

There was no point in going if he was just going ot fall asleep once he got there. The best thing he could do right now was head home, take a nap and then continue his research afterwards.

Well, that was the plan anyway.

Plans change. Kai bumps into a boy who's slightly taller than him, with messy brown locks and clothing that tells him that he's not in school. The boy looks down at him for a moment, almost as if to apologize. He's clearly not paying attention to where he's going.

Kei waits patiently. "Oh sorry- Hey! You're that Kai person!"

That 'Kai' person? What the hell did that even mean? He raises an eyebrow at the taller boy in question, speaking his mind before he can say anything else. "How do you know my name?"

"You're the other kid who was on the news with Nagai! They said that he was trying to hurt you, but really you guys were friends right? You were trying to help him."

Kai's gaze shifts at the memory. This was the first time someone called him out on it, and hopefully the last time. Out of the twenty thousand something people who had joined the Ajin Protection Program, no one has ever approached Kai before. "Yeah? What of it?"

"I was looking for you!"

"Why?"

The boy smiles; making a fist and raising it high, a determined look on his face as he declares his reason. "Cause I want to save him!"

"I do too, and apparently twenty thousand others want to help too."

"Do you mean A.P.P? It's good support and all, for ajins in general. We're talking about Nagai though."

Kai looks pissed. "Don't you think I know what already?! What the hell do you think I've been doing for the past four years?! I've been trying to find ways to save him since the day he was taken!"

Awkwardly, the boy smiles. "Well another pair of hands wouldn't hurt, right? I'm Kou!" He holds his hand out and Kai takes it; if he hadn't been able to get anything done on his own, than maybe he's get something done with a partner.

Kou leans in so close that he feels the hair on the back of his neck stand tall. "I'm an Ajin too."

Kai's eyes widen.

What?

"Cool." He says, lamely. "How do you plan to help Kei?"

"I have an uncle who's friends with a doctor named 'Ryou.'

oOo

Hot. Everything was hot. Were they burning him again? How long would it take him to finally die this time? It felt like things were different today; the room was going up in smoke, and pieces of the ceiling were falling down. Some of them hit him, others make a mess on the floor.

He frowns. What was this? What had happened? Were they really going to leave him shackled to the dissection table while the whole building burned down? Had they all left him behind, planning on recovering his body from the ashes?

The flames lick the bandages covering him, some burning and others becoming singed. He ignores the pain as the fire begun to burn parts of his uncovered skin. He's been through worse, he tells himself. Burning to death hurts so much more, mainly because he doesn't do it as often. They don't do it as often.

Suddenly, his bindings are undone.

The metal releases his limbs and allows him full movement; but it's not time to clean the room yet, it's not even lunch break yet. This wasn't the schedule; not yet, not yet. What if they changed it?

Someone forces him to sit up; it's not very pleasant and his body is sore. The bandages are removed from his head, but everything else stays. He sees the scientist who had promised to one day, get him out. "Is it time, to clean?" He asks, head tilting to the side curiously.

Ryou shakes his head, eyebrows furrowed at Kei's eerie calmness at the situation. "All of the exits are blocked off, but the least I can do is get you out of here. We'll go to the roof, okay?"

"Okay," Kei agrees. It's not any fourteen year old boy's dream to be carried in the arms of a full grown man, but it's not like he can do anything about it. Instead he settles into the first real human touch he's felt since he arrived.

It doesn't take long for them to make it to the roof; Kei zones out for the most of it, but when they finally get to the top he struggles until the man finally puts him down. There's a small crowd of people gathered at the bottom of the building; there's a news crew waiting for them beneath.

There's nowhere to go. The building only continued to fall apart; exits and doors were destroyed, and even the roof was getting a little shaky. There was a river that would probably drown both of them if they jumped into it, but Ryou wouldn't come back and Kei wouldn't survive long on his own.

There was really only one option. "You might still be hurt, Mr. Ryou. But please allow me to cushion your fall."

The man shakes his head; fear clear in his eyes at the very thought of killing a fourteen year old boy so that he would survive. "No, please, just go without me."

"We're both gonna die if I do that! The only thing different is that I'll come back and you won't." Kei struggles to stand; his legs are unfamiliar to the feeling of supporting what little body weight he had. "Please, let me return the favor."

That's exactly what Kei does.

The video of Kei falling off the roof with one of the scientists who tortured him in his arms goes on the news, everyone sees it. Everyone sees the way Kei dies when he hits the ground and how the scientist stands up to defend him.

The A.P.P grows.

Once again, Kei is taken away by the government.

oOo

The news station shows a picture of Kei when he was first captured; it's a picture of him alongside Kai, they're both holding hands and smiling. Kai remembers the day as if it had just happened yesterday; it was the day right before the incident, and they were returning home from the playground. Kei had made it all the way across the monkey bars for the first time, and had been proud of himself the whole day.

"This is the Ajin who was discovered five years ago during an car accident, trying to protect his friend from a speeding delivery truck. Kei Nagai, nine years old when he was taken away by the government, has spent four long years in captivity enduring experiments more inhuman than the last."

The reporter zooms in on the picture for a couple seconds longer before the picture is switched to a more recent one, it's a thirteen year old Kei who's nothing but skin and bones. His eyes are sunken in and he looks completely and utterly defeated. "Today the laboratory he was being kept in went up in flames, and he risked his freedom in order to save a human life."

The video of Kei falling to his death with the scientist in his arms is shown, and a couple various pictures of his torture is shown on the screen. "While Kei's criminal record is completely clear, he has been treated unfairly because he is an ajin. However, over the years the support and desire for the safety of innocent Ajin has skyrocketed immensely."

"Due to the support of the constantly growing Ajin Protection Program, there is a law being passed. From now on all Ajin will go through the government to be registered as official Ajin and will be able to carry on life as normal humans, in hopes that no child will ever have to suffer like this again. Registered Ajin will be expected to wear a bracelet that carries a lethal dose of poison, that will make sure they are unable to harm others. In addition to that, new ID cards made specifically for Ajin will be handed out."

The screen changes to a live feed of Nagai, sleeping comfortably in a hospital bed with a multitude of tubes hooked up to him. "Nagai Kei will be brought back to health and released back to his family."

Kai shuts off the television set and shares a celebratory pizza with his new friend, someone who Kei would hopefully get along with when they met. "Good work, teammate." Kou says as he flashes the other a grin, clearly proud of himself.

The younger of the two takes a piece quietly, a thoughtful look on his face as he brings it to his mouth. "All we did was call the police."

"We gave them the location and time too! We really pulled it off!"

Kai shakes his head. "We were lucky. Things could've gone a multitude of different ways. What if Kei had used that man as a shield to get away? Or what if he abandoned Ryou on the roof? Or even attacked the police and tried to get away?"

"But he didn't."

"He could've, though. The police could've just detained him too, and they could've threatened the news not to leak anything out. We got lucky, very lucky."

Kou smirks. "Cheers to luck?"

Kai nods, holding out his cup of soda and clinking it against Kai's. "Cheers to luck."

oOo

When Kei wakes up in the hospital, it feels like a miracle.

The bed is soft, the blankets keep him warm, and a warm breeze blows in from outside the open window. He doesn't have any bandages or metal bindings that hold him down and restrict him; there's an actual pillow underneath his head, and even a glass of water by his bedside. He reaches an arm out from the safety of his blankets to pick it up and bring it to his very dry lips; he chokes on the first couple drops, but forces it anyway.

His body needs it, even if it seemed keen on rejecting everything all the time.

There are two tubes going down his nose; probably providing some sort of nutrients because right now his body was so malnourished that it wasn't even funny. He nearly drops the empty glass of water, but somehow manages to get it back down onto the table safely. Slowly, he lets his eyes dance around the room. It's clean; there's no blood anywhere to be seen, and there's even a couple flowers by his bedside.

That being said, Kei feels a little anxious.

What if this place wasn't as nice as if seemed to be? What if it was just a cruel ploy to give him hope? He decides to push those thoughts off to the side of his head; the black ghost that seemed to follow him around no matter where he went was gone at the moment, was that normal? He frowns, pushing his back further up against the pillow and trying to keep his tired eyes open.

The door swings open. Kei braces himself for a doctor or a surgeon or someone that was coming in to hurt him; it's Kai. Kai. Kai's here, Kai's standing in front of him, Kai's alive and well and he looks tired and worn but that's okay because he's here. A smile brings itself to Kei's lips, something that hasn't graced his face for a long, long time now. It feels awkward and warm at the same time.

"Kei." He breathes, voice a bit deeper than he remembers it to be. He has his left ear pierced and his hair is died in a way that makes his appearance look more rebellious. He's taller too, but his face hasn't changed at all. Kai feels his heart picking up it's pace as the boy gets closer to his bed. "How are you feeling? You've been out of it for nearly a week now."

Really, he feels like crap. His body is thin, but feels a lot heavier than what he's comfortable with. The knowledge that there are tubes going up his nose and down into his stomach is freaky, and his head hurts. A lot. He doesn't tell Kai any of that, right now it doesn't matter. "I'm..." He wants to say that he's fine, but he can't. The words get caught in the back of his throat and never reach his lips. When they come up again, they're different. "I missed you."

His voice cracks and his face heats up; his skin is so pale that even the slightest bit of red makes him look silly. There are tears in his eyes that he can't stop from falling, since when did it become so hard to control his emotions? Why did everything have to tip over now, now that Kai was here? He wipes the tears away, showing Kai his skinny wrist and bony fingers. "I'm sorry."

Kei drops his hands to the ground, eyebrows furrowed at the sudden apology. "None of this was your fault."

"If you hadn't saved me then you wouldn't have had to go through all of this! You'd still be living happily, getting good grades, and becoming a doctor like you wanted to!" He snaps, angry. His eyes soften considerably. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I couldn't get you out of there sooner. I'm sorry I took so long. I'm..."

"You tried to get me to run away with you. You risked your only human life for me and I almost got you killed, so maybe we both have things to be sorry about." He finishes, red eyes pinned on Kai's frustrated orbs. "It's in the past, so let's get over it okay? I just want to be happy to be back."

Kai wipes his own tears away. "Yeah. It's all over now, Kei."

The look of complete and utter surprise on Kei's face when Kai hugs him is unforgettable; human contact has become something so unbelievably rare to him that he didn't even know what to do right now. For the past four years the only thing he's been touched by are gloves and tools that caused nothing but pain, but Kai... He was warm. He melts into his friends chest and listens to his heart, feels his breath against his ear, and even the warmth from his skin.

He felt safe.

Kei falls asleep like that. Repeat. He falls asleep; it's different from passing out, blacking out, or even dying. It's the warm sensation of slowly letting his consciousness fade and his breath even out until finally, he's asleep. He sleeps better than he's ever slept in his life; a sense of overwhelming happiness washes over him and suddenly it seems like everything will be okay again.

Three years later a man by the name of Sato will show up to mess things up again.

Nagai Kei won't let things go down that road again.

* * *

 **A/N: I've been meaning to write an Ajin fic for awhile now. Glad I did. Even if it is a mess. I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought about it. Constructive criticism is welcome in boat loads! :)**

 **~Crimsy**


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